This invention relates to safety glasses, and in particular, to portable, flexible, eyeglass safety side shields.
In prior years, workers in environments that could be hazardous to the eyes were required to wear safety goggles which covered the face about the eyes, and which were cumbersome to the wearer to the point of being a distraction from the work to be done. The goggles further created vision aberrations that made the workers' task even harder, particularly when the goggles were fitted over prescription eyeglasses.
In view of the above, a migration toward the use of safety eyeglasses has occurred. Safety glasses are well known in the prior art and are used to protect the eyes of an individual from airborne particles, high-velocity projectiles, wind and the like. The use of safety glasses acceptable both for use in hazardous areas, and for casual wear, has given rise to the use of safety side shields. The safety side shields are added to eyeglasses to provide a protective barrier to the side, above or below the eye and normally supplements safety glasses.
Safety side shields for prescription glasses are known which are permanently fixed with metal brads, or are permanently molded as an integral part of ear pieces and eyeglass frames. While providing a more comfortable fit for work in hazardous areas, such glasses are too bizarre in appearance for casual wear. For regular daily wear, therefore, the user must purchase a second pair of prescription glasses.
To gain wider acceptance of the use of safety eyeglasses, portable safety side shields have become popular. Portable safety side shields may be easily mounted and detached from eyeglass frames. A wearer may mount the side shields on eyeglass frames when in a hazardous environment, and remove the side shields for casual every day wear.
Portable safety side shields are known in the prior art. Prior art safety shields typically partially overlap the side, front, and top of the eyeglass lens frame, and employ either metal fasteners or elastic bands with metal tips to attach to the ear pieces of the eyeglass frames. These side shields are usually difficult to mount to eyeglass frames, and restrict temple movement so that it is difficult to fold the temples to store the eyeglasses in a shirt pocket or a spectacle case. Furthermore, the protection provided by such side shields is easily lost through slight inadvertent impact or rotational movement of the shields. Because of their metal conductive parts, prior art side shields create an electrical hazard when working in environments with high current electrical fields. In addition, the conducting parts are susceptible to chemical corrosion, and with deterioration may come apart during impact.
Many of the known safety side shields have a hinge window to accommodate a wide range of eye glass hinge sizes. Such hinge windows, however, will allow projectiles moving in a primarily horizontal direction to impact the eye.
Other portable safety side shields are made of plastic in an effort to remove conductive metallic parts from the safety side shields. The plastic portable safety side shields of the prior art are made from a stiffened plastic, typically with a fixed pantoscopic angle (the angle a temple eyeglass piece makes with the eyeglass front to which it is attached) molded into them that cannot be easily varied for eyeglasses with a different pantoscopic angle. Prior art rigid plastic portable safety side shields are also limited in size range and are not readily adapted to fit different spectacle sizes and shapes.